E4/REG/2011/07 (Only Available in EN)

EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT

Directorate E: Sectoral and regional statistics Unit E-4: Regional statistics and geographical information

E4/REG/2011/07 (Only available in EN)

WORKING PARTY ON REGIONAL STATISTICS AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT TO BE HELD IN LUXEMBOURG, BECH BUILDING – ROOM AMPERE ON 4/5.10.2011

Report of delegates on major developments in regional, urban, rural or maritime statistics Item 6.2 of the agenda

Document available on Circa: http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/dsis/Home/main

The members of the Regional Statistics and Rural Development Working Group are asked:

 to take note of the report. 1. BACKGROUND

We asked participants to send me a short description of the situation in the domain of regional, urban and rural statistics in their country structured around the following headings:

- General structure and organisation

- Scope of regional statistics

- Territorial units

- Dissemination

Please find the answers in the annex country by country. We received answers from the following countries:

BELGIUM 4 BULGARIA 5 CZECH REPUBLIC 6 DENMARK 8 GERMANY 11 ESTONIA 13 IRELAND 15 SPAIN 16 LATVIA 17 LITHUANIA 20 HUNGARY 23 MALTA 24 THE NETHERLANDS 25 POLAND 27 SLOVENIA 29 SLOVAK REPUBLIC 31 FINLAND 32 SWEDEN 35 UNITED KINGDOM 36 CROATIA 39 NORWAY 42 TURKEY 44

2. SUMMARY

General structure and organization

There is an almost perfect equilibrium between the countries that do have a dedicated department for regional statistics and those who are producing regional statistics as part of the major themes.

An interesting approach for regional statistics is seen in Estonia, where a Regional Statistics Council was formed, for a better and user-friendlier arrangement of the production of regional statistics.

2 Scope of Regional Statistics

The core domains of regional and urban statistics are homogeneous among the countries. The major rolls been taken by demography, population, labor market and economics.

No major changes ware registered in priorities for the last four years, which denotes a mature environment for producing high quality statistics.

NUTS3 level data plays a major roll in the process of collecting and disseminating statistical information for NSIs. The core domains for which data is collected and disseminated are demography, labor market, economy, tourism, transport and environment.

Territorial Units

No major territorial reorganization is foreseen for the next period, resulting in a more stable environment for statistical data collection and analysis.

For the majority of the countries it seems that the actual NUTS regions are highly comparable, but room for improvement still exists.

Dissemination

The primary dissemination mechanism, for all countries, is via the web, free of charge. Paper publications are still part of the mechanism, but their role is diminishing and the tendency is to be converted into web-based publications.

3 ANNEX – COUNTRY REPORTS

BELGIUM

General structure and organisation

 How is regional statistics production/co-ordination organized in your NSI?

Cette statistique n’est pas centralisée. Elle est coordonnée de manière ad hoc pour les différents projets, notamment Audit Urbain et publication.

 Do you have a team responsible, or do you have regular co-ordination meetings or rather bilateral discussions?)

Aucune équipe spécifique et aucune réunion de coordination. Des réunions bilatérales ou ad hoc ont lieu pour les différents thèmes d’Audit Urbain ou de sélection de NUTS.

Scope of regional statistics

 What are the core domains of regional and urban statistics in your NSI?

Statistiques sur la population (distribution et mouvement)

 Was there any change in priorities in the last four years?

Aucun changement.

 What are the most interesting projects in the domain of regional statistics you are currently working on?

Nous recherchons une nouvelle définition de la zone rurale.

 Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level?

If yes: What are the core domains? Did you encounter any difficulties?

If no: Why not?

Oui, répartition de la population et mouvement de la population, occupation du sol, statistiques agricoles.

Nous rencontrons un problème de précision qui ne va pas s’améliorer avec la simplification administrative en cours.

Territorial units

 Does your administration plan any territorial reorganisation on municipality or regional level in the next three years? 4 Non

 Does your NSI consider the comparability of NUTS regions on EU level being acceptable? If not, how could comparability be improved in the future?

Il y a différents points de vue. D’un point de vue population, il faudrait des populations équivalentes, notamment pour les zones urbaines. D’un point de vue territorial (agriculture, environnement), il faudrait des surfaces équivalentes, notamment pour les zones rurales.

On pourrait donc imaginer des zones urbaines plus petites et de taille variable, et des zones rurales plus grandes et de taille comparable.

Dissemination

 Could you describe briefly how you disseminate regional and urban data?

Nous travaillons à une diffusion horizontale (via be.SAT) de données au niveau des communes "chiffres clé des communes" (sans distinction entre communes rurales ou urbaines) et sur notre site, figure une typologie rural/urbain des communes (typologie ocde-eurostat)

BULGARIA

In the structure of the NSI of Bulgaria a Regional statistics and GIS department is detached. Regional statistics and GIS department’s main function is to compile data at regional level from other departments within NSI as well as from the regional offices. Besides that its team is responsible for the integration of regional data from external sources – administrative registers and information systems and for the maintenance of a database with regional information.

The core domains of the regional and urban statistics are demography, social aspects, business statistics.

Bulgaria is a part from the Urban Audit data collection since 2004. 5  Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level? If yes: What are the core domains? Did you encounter any difficulties? If no: Why not?

NSI of Bulgaria collect and disseminate data at NUTS 3 level. The core domains are: population and housing, labour market, health, education, business statistics, environment, transport, tourism, information society.

Territorial units

 Does your administration plan any territorial reorganisation on municipality or regional level in the next three years?

We do not have an information about any plans for territorial reorganisation.

Dissemination

We disseminate regional data via the official website of the NSI, an annual publication – “The regions, districts and municipalities in Republic of Bulgaria” and a number of publications of our Regional Statistical Offices.

CZECH REPUBLIC

There is no special Regional statistics department within the Czech Statistical Office. Only relatively small teams have been focused on regional data processing and dissemination – mainly in the central public databases sections or in the 14 branches of the CzSO in the regional capitals (NUTS-3 level).

The above mentioned 14 regional teams are responsible for the data elaboration and dissemination including maintenance of their own web sites. They also produce regular (e.g. Regional Yearbook) and ad hoc analytical publications – this job involves co-ordination meetings and management incl. bilateral / informal collaboration.

6 Scope of regional statistics

E.g. population census data (territorially very detailed) and demography (on the municipal level) are among traditional domains, followed by register of enumerating units incl. geocoding of buildings, register of businesses, register of accommodation establishments, and the full variety of subject matter statistics, starting from agriculture (reports and censuses), up to the labour, social and IT statistics (sample surveys). Some data has been obtained from other state offices (e.g. education, health care, social security, culture, crime, transportation). Data for all cities are basically treated on the same level as all other municipalities (on average very small in the Czech Rep.), so the urban statistics are rather limited (except Prague, the city on the NUTS-3 level).

Main focus has been given on streamlined processes, clear classifications, wider use of sample surveys and administrative sources, dissemination via public database and electronic outputs.

E.g. data service for the state system of the territorial and city planning based on regular 2-year’s analysis on the municipal level using the concept of sustainable development. Generally speaking, the concept of the Internet public database with user defined outputs.

 Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level? If yes: What are the core domains? Did you encounter any difficulties? If no: Why not?

Yes, we have traditionally data at the NUTS-3 level, although the trend is to satisfy the Eurostat needs on NUTS-2 level only. Difficulties sometimes result from small samples and several small NUTS-3 units (down to 300 thousand people).

Territorial units

Not known. The changes on the municipal level are common, although not so frequent comparing with the early 1990s.

Unfortunately not. Especially the issue of the non-compliance of the NUTS-1 encounters the political sensitivity of the administrative regions structure. Problem solving lies in long-term education. 7 Dissemination

Basically via web site with free databases and variety of data and analytical publication. Regional offices also provide personal assistance.

DENMARK

See below

Statistics Denmark is organized in departments of social-, business- and economic statistics which each produce statistics on regional level. There are some bilateral ongoing discussions between the departments.

Regional statistics are produced for all subject mentioned below while only population statistics can be find for urban areas

Subjects

Population and elections

Education

Culture and National Church

Labour market

Earnings

Social conditions, health and justice

Income, consumption and prices

General economic statistics

Agriculture and fishery

8 Manufacturing industries

Construction and housing

Service sector

Transport

Environment and energy

National accounts, balance of payments and international investment position

Public finance

Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level? If yes: What are the core domains? Did you encounter any difficulties? If no: Why not?

The statistical subject area where statistic fields can be broken down on municipalities data are summarized to the NUTS3 level in our statbank. See www.statbank.dk

Subjects

Population and elections

Education

Culture and National Church

Labour market

Earnings

Social conditions, health and justice

Income, consumption and prices

General economic statistics

Agriculture and fishery

9 Manufacturing industries

Construction and housing

Service sector

Transport

National accounts, balance of payments and international investment position

Public finance

Territorial units

Does your administration plan any territorial reorganisation on municipality or regional level in the next three years?

NUTS level for EU27 is not much used in statistic Denmark

Therefore we haven’t not enough knowledge to give our opion on this matter.

Dissemination

The same day we release or update figures for a statistical subject area we upload more detailed information on NUTS3 and municipalities in www.statbank.dk

GERMANY

 How is regional statistics production/co-ordination organized in your NSI? 10  Do you have a team responsible, or do you have regular co-ordination meetings or rather bilateral discussions?)

Im Statistischen Bundesamt beschäftigt sich das Referat von Frau Dr. Susanne Schnorr-Bäcker und drei Mitarbeiterinnen mit der Koordinierung von Regionalstatistik. Ein weiteres Referat ist zuständig für die regionalstatistischen Veröffentlichungen. Gleichzeitig ist jeder fachstatistische Arbeitsbereich im Statistischen Bundesamt zuständig für die regionalstatistischen Anforderungen seiner Statistiken.

Zurzeit befindet sich der Zensus 2011 in der Erhebungsphase. Aufgrund des registergestützten Zensus werden Registermerkmale auch unterhalb der kommunalen Ebene zur Verfügung stehen. Stichprobenmerkmale allerdings nur auf Gemeinde- bzw. Kreisebene. Zur Abgrenzung ländlicher von städtisch geprägten Räumen sieht Eurostat ein Orte-Konzept vor: Danach werden in sich geschlossene Siedlungsbereiche zusammengefasst. In Deutschland wird die Einteilung gemäß Orte-Konzept derzeit vorbereitet. Kleinräumige Auswertungen unter Einbeziehung von Geokoordinaten sind derzeit aufgrund nicht vorhandener gesetzlicher Grundlage nicht möglich.

Auf dem Gebiet der Regionalstatistik gibt es im Statistischen Bundesamt eine Fülle von Initiativen, um kleinräumig und flexibel statistische Daten bereitzustellen. Hier sind vor allem drei Bereiche zu nennen, die derzeit auf europäischer und nationaler Ebene im Vordergrund stehen:

INSPIRE: der Aufbau einer webbasierten Geodateninfrastruktur für Europa und die Mitgliedstaaten

URBAN AUDIT: für Europa werden kleinräumig statistische Daten zunehmend für die europäische Regional-, Struktur- und Kohäsionspolitik benötigt.

Georeferenzierung: In der jüngeren Vergangenheit sind wichtige Nutzergruppen und zahlreiche Nutzer an das Statistische Bundesamt herangetreten mit dem Wunsch nach flexibel auswertbaren kleinräumigen statistischen Angaben. Diese Möglichkeit soll durch eine Änderung im Bundesstatistikgesetz geschaffen werden.

11  Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level? If yes: What are the core domains? Did you encounter any difficulties? If no: Why not?

Zentrale Bundesstatistiken, die Daten bis Gemeindeebene erheben sind u.a.:

- Zensus -Geschäftsstatistik zur Gewerbesteuer - Statistik über Steueraufkommen - Personalstandsstatistik des Bundesbereichs

Territorial units

In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern wurde im September 2011 eine umfangreiche Gebietsänderung durchgeführt. Für die kommenden Jahre stehen uns derzeit noch keine Informationen zu anstehenden Gebietsreformen zur Verfügung."

Dissemination

Wir verbreiten unsere Regionaldaten durch Produkte wie

„Regionaldatenbank Deutschland“ – GENESIS Online,

„ Regionalatlas“ – Gemeinschaftsprodukt der statistischen Ämter des Bundes und der Länder

„Gemeindeverzeichnis“ Online: das Gemeindeverzeichnis-Informationssystem GV- ISys

„Regionalstatistischer Datenkatalog“ des Bundes und der Länder

„INKAR“ – Indikatoren und Karten zur Raumentwicklung.

12 ESTONIA

 Do you have a team responsible, or do you have regular co-ordination meetings or rather bilateral discussions?

There is a 3 person team for co-ordination and production of regional statistics in the Analysis and Publications Service in Statistics Estonia (SE). Regional statistics are produced in different departments of SE also.

In 2009 the Regional Statistics Council was formed for a better and user-friendlier arrangement of the production of regional statistics and for more effective use of the limited resources allocated for the production of regional statistics. Members of the Council are the specialists of different domains and get together regularly.

The core domains of regional and urban statistics are: population, social life and economy. The data are mainly disseminated at LAU1 and LAU2 levels. To assure the reliability of data the dissemination occurs at the bigger regions as rural and urban settlements or bigger cities.

Instead of paper publications most data are disseminated in electronic format. More attention is paid to statistical analysis.

In autumn 2010 the Portal of regional statistics (http://www.stat.ee/pp) was opened. This is the environment on the website of SE, which compiles all products of the regional statistics. The electronic publication Piirkondlik portree Eestist (Regional Portrait of Estonia, http://www.stat.ee/ppe) is a part of the Portal of the regional statistics. The electronic publication provides a short overview about the development of Estonia, its counties and local government units. At the moment the Portal and e-publication are available only in Estonian but it is planned to translate both of them into English.

 Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level? Yes: The core domains are:

1. Population;

2. Social life (Labour market, education, income, subsistence benefits, culture, justice and security);

3. Environment (natural resources and their use);

13 4. Economy (RGDP, tourism and accommodation, construction, real estate, government finances, internal trade)

 Did you encounter any difficulties? No

Territorial units

No. Territorial reorganisation on municipality or regional level is connected with local elections when municipalities have possibility to merge (or split).

Dissemination

1. Statistical database; to make the search for regional statistics easier, all tables which contain regional data are marked with the sign

2. Products on website: The Portal of regional statistics, e-publication Regional Portrait of Estonia, thematic maps, dashboard of sustainability;

3. Regional publications: “Eesti piirkondlik areng. Regional Development in Estonia”, publications on different domains;

4. Events with data users (local governments, county governments, educational institutions, etc.)

5. The Portal of regional statistics contains link to the Eurostat regional and urban statistics

IRELAND

The CSO has one RECSO and one NUAC. The RESCO has responsibility for statistics relating to regional accounts, while the NUAC looks after urban statistics and the Urban Audit project. Work relating to regional and urban statistics forms part of the general activities of both persons. Any discussions occur on a bilateral basis as the need arises between the relevant sections.

In relation to regional accounts the following are transmitted to Eurostat:

– GVA at NUTS 3 (T+24 months)

– Total employment and employees broken down into NACE 2 categories supplied at NUTS 3 (T+24 months)

– Compensation of employees (T+24 months)

– Gross fixed capital formation at NUTS 2 (T+24 months)

– Primary Household income at NUTS2 (Includes self employed)

– Population estimates at NUTS 3

There are also indicators from the Labour Force and EU-SILC surveys as well as Vital Statistics provided to Eurostat at NUTS 3 level generally.

Data is collected for the above domains with a view to dissemination at regional level. However allowances have to be made for the small sample size of the Labour Force and EU-SILC surveys. There has been no major change in priorities regarding the collection and dissemination of the core regional indicators. The most significant work currently taking place relates to the preparation of National Accounts data broken down by NACE2 categories.

Territorial units

The Irish territorial units are stable and no changes are planned to the existing NUTS regions. The CSO would welcome any proposals to improve comparability between NUTS regions but do not have any solutions on how to resolve this issue.

Dissemination

Almost all of the regional indicators sent to Eurostat are disseminated in the form of annual paper release and/or as database direct files on the CSO website.

 How is regional statistics production/co-ordination organized in your NSI? In the INE there is no particular unit referring to regional and urban statistics. Each survey produced by the INE has its own spatial levels and according to this breakdown, the data are collected and disseminated.

15  Do you have a team responsible, or do you have regular co-ordination meetings or rather bilateral discussions?) There is not a team responsible. Nevertheless there are many coordination meetings between the responsible of the compilation of statistical operations with regional breakdown and regional accountants.

What are the core domains of regional and urban statistics in your NSI?

We do not talk about regional statistics at INE. We talk about statistical operations with regional breakdown. Almost all of them have a regional breakdown, at NUTS2 or NUTS3 level.

Regarding urban statistics, as mentioned, the absence of a particular Unit implies the absence of a core domain of special interest. There is a Unit which belongs to the Directorate of Social and Demographic Statistics almost exclusively in charge of the Urban Audit Project.

Was there any change in priorities in the last four years? No

What are the most interesting projects in the domain of regional statistics you are currently working on? As said, almost all of the statistical operations compiled in INE have a regional breakdown. No new tasks have been identified as a priority for improving the current situation.

Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level? Yes, many operations If yes: What are the core domains? Labour market, Population

Did you encounter any difficulties? No, The operations have been designed for covering this breakdown. Some of them, for instance LFS, it is disseminating data at NUTS3 level for more than 30 years.

If no: Why not?

Territorial units

Does your administration plan any territorial reorganisation on municipality or regional level in the next three years? In principle, no

 Does your NSI consider the comparability of NUTS regions on EU level being acceptable? If not, how could comparability be improved in the future? The difference in the size of the territories could reduce the comparability of the statistical data and, if we accept as a NUTS level an administrative breakdown (as in the Regulation), in our opinion, it is difficult to improve the current situation, because the criteria used by countries to do their administrative breakdown are not the same.

16 Dissemination

Concerning urban statistics we have developed two major projects to disseminate the Urban Audit data: a geographic information system (GIS) and the inclusion of the Project on the official website, however, both are in a standstill status. Nevertheless, each survey in the INE which present regional or urban data disseminates the information according with the common ways of dissemination policy (website, press releases, magazines, etc).

LATVIA

Regional statistics is produced by respective structural unit of the Central statistical Bureau (CSB). The scope of regional data is determined by National Program of Statistical Information (NPSI). All CSB data included into NPSI are published in CSB web databases.

NPSI contains official statistics (including regional statistics – see data breakdown) produced by all national official statistics producers. Producers themselves should provide public access free of charge to their data in the amount determined by NPSI.

The legal base for statistics production is given in the Official Statistics Law of the Republic of Latvia, adopted on November 6, 1997 and further amended. It is specified in the law that one of the functions of the CSB is preparation, within the limits of regular annual financial resources, of a NPSI where information on specified statistical data/indicators compiled on different statistical domains, data source (responsible institution), periodicity, methods of acquisition and level of aggregation (including territorial level) is given. Statistical data included in NPSI is being prepared by institution responsible free of charge. Each section of NPSI is dedicated to different statistical domain and is divided into two parts: 1- statistics prepared according to regulations/regular requests of the EU or other international organization; 2- data prepared according to regular requests of internal data users.

According to the NUTS regulation the whole territory of Latvia is one NUTS level 1 region, the same refers to NUTS level 2. There are six statistical regions on NUTS level 3 in Latvia. The structure of statistical regions is laid down by the Cabinet Order No. 271 of the Republic of Latvia, adopted on April 28, 2004, “On

17 the Statistical Regions of the Republic of Latvia and Administrative Units Therein” and further amended.  Do you have a team responsible, or do you have regular co-ordination meetings or rather bilateral discussions?).

Preparation of NPSI, co-ordination of regional and urban issues (not data production itself), functions of RESCO & NUAC as well regional data collection projects, like Urban Audit and Rural development indicators and other initiatives like SIRE are under responsibility of Statistical Methodology and Organization Division of CSB (NPSI - 1 staff member; regional and urban issues – 1 staff member).

Mainly discussions on regional data needs are held once a year during the preparation of NPSI when data producers and users (CSB, Bank of Latvia, Ministries, Union of Self-Governments etc) meet and discuss amount of official statistics including the territorial breakdown of data.

Basically social statistics is available on smaller administrative level (population statistics, health, culture, social protection etc). Business statistics on smaller administrative level is available in very limited amount (info from CSB Statistical Enterprise Register, Farm structure survey, statistics on Wages and salaries. Statistical data on transport, tourism, investments and energy statistics needed for decision making on development issues are available for representatives of local municipalities and other data users on the LAU level 2 respecting criteria of statistical confidentiality. The large amount of these data comes from the CSB, Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Economics. Wide range of data on real estate and environment statistics are available as well. To provide such data CSB uses registers and databases of the State Land Service, Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre etc.

Urban statistics is not a popular topic in LV.

Basically there was no change in priorities, as mainly NPSI is based on amount of statistics requested by other (EU, national or international) legal acts. Limited amount of data was reduced in terms of breakdown and periodicity because of budget and staff cuts and of reduction of response burden.

Amount of data at municipality level and on 6 statistical (NUTS 3) regions in the last four years practically stayed unchanged.

National users of regional statistics were hardly hit by strong decrease of data at the level in between local municipalities and regions (LAU 1). In the middle of 2009 the Administrative Territorial Reform was finished and this level was abolished. So, 2009 was the last reference period for statistics at LAU level 1.

18  Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level? If yes: What are the core domains? Did you encounter any difficulties? If no: Why not?

Yes we collect/ disseminate data at NUTS level 3. Only statistics on Balance of Payments, Prices, Foreign Trade, Industry, Trade and Services and Fishery are not available on NUTS level 3 (available on national level). Statistical data on the rest domains are available on NUTS level 3.

NUTS level 3 data do not always answer the needs of internal data users. They are more interested to get statistical information that is compiled on the lower level, i.e. data about smaller administrative units of the country (local municipalities).

Territorial units

The administrative regional level could be established. Currently (planning) regions are not administrative units.

Dissemination

Regional and urban data are not treated separately. Almost all statistical information that is compiled by the CSB and is included in the NPSI is available on our web page free of charge. The CSB is trying to increase the amount of statistical data available for the public, strictly respecting statistical confidentiality and available resources.

LITHUANIA

In Statistics Lithuania we have a separate Regional Statistics and Register of Statistical Indicators Subdivision that is responsible for regional statistics: preparation of publications, information and leaflets on regional and urban statistics, preparation and implementation of the plan on the measures of the development of regional statistics, expansion of the Database of Indicators by means of collecting statistical information at the regional level, organization of surveys of different consumer groups in order to determine consumer needs for regional statistics and coordination of projects both on regional and urban or rural statistics.

In Statistics Lithuania, the core domains of regional and urban statistics are as follows: demographic and social, macroeconomics, business and agriculture statistics. The diagram presented below represents the distribution of regional data by subject domain in the Database of Indicators. The majority of statistical information at regional level is available on population and social statistics, 24% – on business statistics.

Distribution of regional data by subject domain in the Database of Indicators

1% Economy and finance 1% (macroeconomics) 4% Population and social statistics 2% 4% 10% Business statistics

Agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing Foreign trade

24% 54% Transport and communication

Science and technology

20 

The priorities on regional statistics are defined in the strategy of Statistics Lithuania for 2008–2012. This document outlines the main objective of regional statistics – to expand the system of statistical indicators and to reflect a realistic situation of regions and their social as well as economic disparities; it also defines the main expected results for the period of 2008–2012: 1. Preparation of annual regional statistical information (on average, 5 days earlier than in 2007). 2. Preparation of more comparable statistical information about the regions of Lithuania broken down by local units.

3. Use of mathematical methods, administrative data sources and geographic information systems for the preparation of regional statistics.

4. Preparation and publishing of quality reports on sources and methods of calculation of regional GDP. 5. Supplementing the Database of Indicators with new annual statistical information at county and municipality levels.

6. Release of quarterly statistical information on the number of employees and earnings by municipalities.

7. Preparation of statistical information on changes in living standards, social inequality, employment and unemployment rates in Vilnius, Kaunas, Panevėžys, Klaipėda and Šiauliai cities. 8. Conducting feasibility studies so as to prove the sufficient reliability of information; subsequent preparation and publishing of statistical information on the income of the population by municipality based on administrative data sources.

Currently we are working with Urban Audit 2009–2010 project. Any additional projects on regional statistics are not executed in Statistics Lithuania.

 Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS 3 level?

If yes: What are the core domains? Did you encounter any difficulties? If no: Why not?

Statistics Lithuania collects and disseminates most of data at NUTS 3 level and LAU 1 level. During data collection in some intersections, due to a small sample we cannot provide data at a more detailed level, especially at the LAU 1 level. In order to get more reliable data, the sample should be multiplied several times. However, this process requires extra financing.

21 Territorial units

In the nearest future, any plans on territorial reorganisation on municipality or regional level are not foreseen. Also, the Ministry of the Interior is responsible for the regional policy, administration reform of the Republic of Lithuania.

Dissemination

All statistical publications, leaflets on regional and urban statistics prepared by Statistics Lithuania are published on the institution’s website free of charge; a considerable amount of statistical information at the national and regional levels is published in the Database of Indicators and in structured pre-defined tables. Every year, taking into consideration users’ demand for regional statistics, Statistics Lithuania expands the Database of Indicators by adding statistical information broken down by counties and municipalities pursuant to the schedule of expansion annually approved by the General Director of Statistics Lithuania. This plan is being updated annually, by the end of the year. The diagram presented below describes the growth of data sets at the regional level in the Database of Indicators. At the end of 2010, the Database of Indicators contained 2031 public tables, 313 of them presented data at the regional level, whereas in September 2011 – 2100 and 320 respectively.

Data sets in the Database of Indicators, 2006-2010

22 HUNGARY

 How is regional statistics production/co-ordination organized in your NSI? We have a data collection and dissemination plan for regional statistics.

 Do you have a team responsible, or do you have regular co-ordination meetings or rather bilateral discussions?) The responsible team is made up of the Regional Dissemination Section and the Dissemination Coordination Section (both within the Dissemination Department).

 What are the core domains of regional and urban statistics in your NSI? The core domains of regional statistics are the collection and dissemination of NUTS2, NUTS3 and LAU1 data. The core domains of urban statistics: delimitation of urban/rural areas and development of a LAU2 database.

 Was there any change in priorities in the last four years? No.

 What are the most interesting projects in the domain of regional statistics you are currently working on? The most interesting projects of regional statistics: determination of regional indicators in different statistical areas.

 Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level? Yes.

If yes: What are the core domains? The core domains: economic, social and environmental data

Did you encounter any difficulties? We do not have difficulties.

If no: Why not? We have a NUTS3 database from year 2000.

Territorial units

 Does your administration plan any territorial reorganisation on municipality or regional level in the next three years? LAU1 level will be reorganised.

 Does your NSI consider the comparability of NUTS regions on EU level being acceptable? We do not have problems with the comparability of NUTS regions.

23 If not, how could comparability be improved in the future?

Dissemination

Comprehensive regional publications: - Regional Statistical Yearbook of Hungary (yearly) - Gazetteer of the Republic of Hungary (yearly) - Pocket Book of Counties and Regions (new) - Statistical Yearbooks of Counties (19) and Budapest (yearly)

Paper-based and web publications, yearbooks and analysis: http://portal.ksh.hu/pls/ksh/ksh_web.shop.main?p_lang=EN

General Note

Malta is the smallest member state of the EU. It covers a land area of 315.59 km2 and is essentially made up of two islands, the bigger island, Malta, and a smaller island Gozo. As may be expected in such a case, most statistics are compiled at a national level, but a number of important indicators are compiled at NUTS 3 level.

General Structure and Organisation

Where applicable, each operational unit in our institute compiles statistics at regional level. The data are then coordinated for transmission by a Statistician who is currently posted in the Agriculture and Fisheries Unit. Bilateral discussions between the various units are held as necessary.

Scope of Regional Statistics

The core domains of regional statistics in our institute are: Employment, Demography, Tourism, Education, Agriculture and Fisheries, Economic Statistics, and a number of other Social indicators.

Regional statistics have always been a priority in the past four years.

24 The regional indicators are currently being updated in order to compile a special assessment study for the island of Gozo (the smaller of the two islands).

The core domains which are compiled and disseminated at NUTS 3 level are as listed above. The difficulties we have encountered are due to lack of adequate details in administrative data. Also in certain cases, it has proved problematic to gain access to administrative records.

Territorial Units

There are no plans of any territorial reorganisation at regional level in the forthcoming three years.

The comparability of NUTS regions is not a first-level issue for our Institute.

Dissemination

The use of regional data is becoming more relevant as the authorities wish to ensure parallel progress between the two islands (Malta and Gozo). Indeed our users are increasing their demand for regional statistics. A set of regional data is currently available on our web-site http://www.nso.gov.mt/site/page.aspx? pageid=494, which data are being updated to 2010.

THE NETHERLANDS

Statistics Netherlands is thematically organized, departed in two directions; economical statistics and social statistics. Within social statistics different teams work on different themes. Regional statistic is a team (regional, spatial and land use statistics) within social statistics.

Within the social statistics, Statisitics Netherlands is more and more working via a huge, common database. All themes put in harmonised data which can then be used by other themes by connecting them via ‘backbone’ data. The Regional statistics team puts in the regional classifications.

Also this team is responsible for the production of tables in which some core data on different themes by region, are put together.

The regional statistics team communicates with external parties on the delineation of several kind of regions.

25 The team disseminates special reports on several themes for municipalities and provinces (NUTS2) every other year.

The team co-ordinates regional deliveries to Eurostat, in a sense that they inform the people concerned about corrections to be made from the Dutch delineation to NUTS. And it co-ordinates the Urban Audit, collecting data available within the organisation.

Statistics Netherlands does have a Regional statistics team. This team does communicate, most of the time bilateral, with colleagues from other themes on how to publish data on a regional level.

Regional Statistics publishes core data on eleven themes. The most exhaustive theme is population. But also other themes like education and social security are well represented.

Proximity of services is added as a theme to the regional core table and as interactive map.

Because of working more and more using a common database, the focus is turning to data on the level of address.

Statistics Netherlands is working on a portal for local governments. This should help them to find regional data and other information which is especially useful for them.

Also, Statistics Netherlands is working on a "backbone" of addresses. Each address is attached to X,Y-coordinates. Longitudinal changes in adresses are updated and differences between registers are solved. This backbone is useful and already used to link addresses to different regional delineations (for instance grids). This can be done for several years to make (regional) time series..

Yes, again core data are collected by the regional statistics group on eleven themes. But also data on a regional level, eg NUTS3, are disseminated by the themes themselves.

26 We do not encounter any difficulties in collecting/dissemination on this level for only the Netherlands. It is, however, rather complex to co-ordinate deliveries on NUTS3 level to Eurostat. For the Netherlands we do have to correct data because NUTS3 does not exactly match our national delineations due to redivisions of municipalities.

Territorial units

Yes, at least on municipality level

Dissemination

We disseminate a table with core data on several themes up to the level of municipality on our website (StatLine).

On our website we do have maps showing different regions.

On the site also some interactive maps are available; on neighbourhood statistics and webservices which can zoom in and show data up to neighbourhood level.

We disseminate two two-yearly reports; one for municipalities, one for provinces (NUTS2). In this reports short articles, with a regional focus, are written on several themes.

POLAND

In production of regional statistics there are involved departments of CSO Poland and regional statistical offices (rso), according to their specialization, responsible for all themes of statistics: population, migration, education, labour market, agriculture etc. While the coordination is managed by one department (Regional and Environmental Surveys Department). Its regional part consists of two main sections: Regional Surveys Section as well as Regional Analyses and Studies Section. There is also a unit responsible for coordination activities undertaken by regional research centres situated in regional statistical offices. Last but not least part of “regional team” is the unit acting for

27 developing regional and local statistical databases in cooperation with Local Data Bank Centre located in rso in Wrocław.

This structure is complemented by three centres, acting countrywide, devoted to different dimensions of regional statistics:  rural statistics (rso Olsztyn),  urban statistics (rso Poznań)  statistics of transborder areas and euroregions (rso Rzeszów).

What is more, some work in the field of regional statistics is done also in marine statistics centre in Szczecin and the usage of geographic information systems in statistical surveys is being developed on the basis of census experiences by the team from Programming and Coordination of Statistical Surveys Department of CSO Poland.

The main domains and activities in regional statistics in Poland are as following: 1. statistical information for regional and local authorities – the second edition of a series of publications dedicated to regional and local authorities, standardised and comparable statistical information for every administration unit in Poland (portraits of units) from the level of statistical locality (http://www.stat.gov.pl/gus/5840_8726_PLK_HTML.htm, website in Polish), 2. transborder areas research – one of the achievements of Polish regional statistics was implementing and regularly carrying the survey on goods and services movement at external EU’s border on the territory of Poland (publication with data obtained from the survey http://www.stat.gov.pl/cps/rde/xbcr/gus/PUBL_ch_ruch_graniczny_na_granicy_ UE_na_ter_Polski_2010.pdf), 3. developing the typology on rural areas in Poland – the aim is to classify different LAU 2 units for furthers analysis among classes, 4. developing the use of administrative registers taking into account their quality (e.g. demographic data on statistical locality level).

CSO Poland collects and disseminates statistical data at NUTS 3 level concerning different themes. In case of some social surveys e.g. LFS, the sample size is too small to publish data at NUTS 3 level.

Territorial units

Once a year (as of 01 I), according to the regulation of the Council of Ministers, there can be implemented some changes based on e.g. changes in borders of units on local levels (mostly LAU2), changes in name or status of the unit (city/rural). At present, CSO Poland does not have any information about plans of territorial reorganisation.

28 Dissemination

Mostly regional data are disseminated through following channels:  CSO Poland’s website (http://www.stat.gov.pl/gus/index_ENG_HTML.htm), Regional Statistics website (with data from Urban Audit project, http://www.stat.gov.pl/gus/regionalna_ENG_HTML.htm) together with Local Data Bank http://www.stat.gov.pl/bdlen/app/strona.html?p_name=indeks) are the primary channels of disseminating regional statistics,  other regional thematic databases, e.g. demographic database with demographic projections (http://demografia.stat.gov.pl/bazademografia/, website in Polish),  publications with regional statistics prepared in CSO Poland or in regional statistical offices, e.g Statistical Yearbook of the Regions, Rural areas in Poland, Basic Urban Statistics, available in paper or PDF version with excel files (the list of main publications is available at Regional Statistics website http://www.stat.gov.pl/gus/5840_5956_ENG_HTML.htm).

SLOVENIA

Subject domains such as demography, education, etc., are responsible for collecting, analysing and disseminating regional statistics, especially loading the database called SI-STAT and publishing results in different publications (First Release, Rapid Reports, Brochures).

The Regional Statistics Department is together with the Editorial Board part of the Sector for Dissemination of Statistical Data and Methods. The department prepares different publications with regional component such as Regions in Figures, Municipalities in Figures; it is responsible for thematic cartography and dissemination of statistical data in formats for users with GIS applications. The Regional Statistics and Editorial Board Department is also responsible for the domain of administrative-territorial breakdown (Register of Spatial Units).

Core domains of regional and urban statistics are: demography, education, labour market, regional accounts, transport, tourism, and R&D.

In the last two years geostatistics (development of different Geographical Information Systems – data + spatial units; applications for presenting and disseminating data in space; data on hierarchical grids) are becoming more important. Some of the data are available on http://www.stat.si/eng/geostatistike.asp

Recently we have established an Internet page where we disseminate population GIS data. GIS data are georeferenced statistical data in vector format and are suitable for further use and analyses with standard GIS tools. Spatial data for 29 cohesion regions (NUTS2), statistical regions (NUTS3), municipalities (LAU2), settlements and grid cells of different sizes ordered in a system of hierarchical grids are available. Population data are at the moment available in the attribute part of vector layers. Data are prepared in ESRI*.shp format. In the near future we will expand the list of data disseminated in this way. Data are available free of charge on http://www.stat.si/GIS/baza.aspx?lang=en

The second project is called KASPeR (Mapping application of statistical data e- dimensions). Web mapping application enables visualization of statistical data by selecting spatial units in combination with various cartographic layers from the Google Maps tool. Zooming in offers you spatially more accurate data presentation while individual values for selected variables are obtained by moving the mouse over the spatial unit. Additional information on spatial unit is available in info boxes. The KASPeR application enables downloading of images and selected spatial layers with the data in vector (*. shp) format. Available on http://www.stat.si/eng/KASPeR.asp

We disseminate data at NUTS 3 level for: demography, territory, national accounts, labour market, education, business entities, agriculture and fishing, construction, tourism, transport, research and development, science and technology, and environment (waste, water). The biggest obstacles are data confidentiality and availability of data in connection with quality of data (survey data).

Territorial units

According to national legislation, territorial breakdown at municipal level can be changed every four years. According to the Local Self-Government Act, in Slovenia regions should also be established. A region shall perform local duties and functions of wider interest related to municipal services, economic, cultural and social development. The project of establishing regions has been topical in recent years.

Dissemination

- SI-STAT Database – data in PC Axis format at NUTS 3 and LAU 2 levels

- Geostatistics portal (applications): KASPeR (Mapping application of statistical data e-dimensions), Interactive Statistical Atlas of Slovenia, dissemination of GIS data, Thematic Cartography (thematic maps at NUTS 3 and LAU 2), Place Names Database

- Publications: Slovene Regions in Figures, electronic publication Slovene Municipalities in Figures, Statistical Yearbook (one part for NUTS 3 and LAU 2), Brochures (mostly data at national level; however, also at regional level), Rapid Reports (mostly data at national level; however, also at regional level).

30 SLOVAK REPUBLIC

- Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic has eight regional offices - each Regional Office is focussed on specific domain (household accounts, finance, demography, labour force survey, statistics of prices, transport, ICT, industry, tourism, market services, energy, construction.

- Some of regional data the SO SR are obtained from statistical statements (reports) and other from Regional Offices.

- Our Office coordinates meeting with the Regional Offices, which takes place once a year

Population, labour market, income and expenditure of households, education, health social protection, culture, regional accounts, finance, fixed assets, organizational statistics, agriculture, industry, energy, construction, internal trade, transport and post services, ICT, tourism, environment, science and technology, criminality, accidents and fires

 Was there any change in priorities in the last four years? NO

 What are the most interesting projects in the domain of regional statistics you are currently working on? Urban Audit 2009

 Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level? YES If yes: What are the core domains? Did you encounter any difficulties?

There are all the data on the level of the municipalities and we are able to calculate them (count them) on the level of NUTS3

If no: Why not?

Territorial units

 Does your administration plan any territorial reorganisation on municipality or regional level in the next three years? NO

31  Does your NSI consider the comparability of NUTS regions on EU level being acceptable? If not, how could comparability be improved in the future?

The comparability of NUTS regions on EU level is acceptable for us.

Dissemination

There are 2 databases of regional data in our Statistical Office.

a) the database of MOS/MIS with all municipalities data of the Slovak Republic

b) the database of Regdat with the data as far as the level NUTS3 or LAU1

Users can free these data download out of the database mentioned above.

Specific requests are provided by Information services of the SO SR.

FINLAND

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The most of the statistics of Statistics Finland are regional statistics. Statistics Finland's activity and finances are steered by the Director General. The activity is organised into six statistics departments, three support function departments, and the Secretariat of the Director General. The directors of the statistics departments have been the directors of the EU projects. I am working as project leader of the ongoing Urban Audit and Rural Development Indicators -projects and as a person in charge of the Finnish Rural Indicators Network Service.

Urban Audit project: The compilation of these urban statistics have been coordinated by Statistics Finland, where the National Urban Audit Coordinator (NUAC) is located. About 30 experts of Statistics Finland in different subject areas have taken part in the data collection. The work has been done in close connection with the cities. The National Working Group for Urban Research of Urban Policy Committee of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy in Finland has been partner in cooperation in Urban Audit project.

32 Rural Development Indicators project: The experts of Statistics Finland in different subject areas have taken part in the data collection. The Information Centre of the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is partner in cooperation in Rural Development Indicators project.

Co-ordination meetings and bilateral discussions have been arranged on demand within the framework of EU projects both within Statistics Finland and with partners in cooperation. The Finnish Rural Indicators Network Service is developed and maintained at the department of Population Statistics.

 What are the core domains of regional, urban and rural statistics in your NSI?

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The core statistics of regional, urban and rural statistics:

Population Statistics department: Dwellings and housing conditions, Employment Statistics, Population structure, Students and qualifications of educational institutions

Social Statistics department: Income distribution statistics, Labour Forse Survey

Prices and Wages department: Prices of dwellings

Economic Statistics department: Regional Accounts, Finances and activities of municipalities and joint municipal boards, Statistics on the finances of agricultural and forestry enterprises

Business Trends department: Accommodation statistics, Business Register

The most interesting projects:

Urban Audit project: The list of Finnish Urban Audit cities has been discussed between European Commission / Eurostat, National Working Group for Urban Research in Finland and Statistics Finland. As a result of discussions Statistics

33 Finland will apply for a grant for the Urban Audit 2012-2013 project so that besides the four present Finnish Urban Audit cities (Helsinki, Oulu, Tampere and Oulu) also Espoo, Vantaa, Lahti, Jyväskylä and Kuopio will be included in the Urban Audit project.

Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Lahti, Kuopio, Oulu, Tampere and Turku are the core cities of the large Finnish urban regions, which are included in the national Government Decision in Principle on Urban Policy (2009). Espoo and Vantaa, which form parts of the Finnish Metropolitan area (Helsinki Kernel) would be treated as separate cities. As before Helsinki Kernel will form a single continuous region. All five new Finnish Urban Audit cities have confirmed their participation in the Urban Audit project if funding is granted.

Data collection exercise Rural Development Indicators: The purpose of the project is to provide reliable and comparable NUTS level 3 data for Finnish areas on basic demographic and socio-economic issues and on infrastructure and service facilities and to report background information for the indicators to the European Commission.

Finnish Rural Indicators Network Service: A chargeable Internet service system for the monitoring of Finnish rural and territorial policy was opened in April 2004. The target groups of the Finnish Rural Indicators system are regional development authorities and other bodies working on Finnish rural policy issues.

Collecting / disseminating data at NUTS3 level:

In general data is collected in Statistics Finland by municipalities (LAU 2). Survey data might be problematic on the low regional level especially if the sample size is small.

Territorial units

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The new Finnish government’s plans for municipal reform. The new municipalities would be based on travel-to-work areas. The decisions concerning the municipal reform would be done until the end of the year 2014. Statistics Finland will on demand provide background information to the government.

34 Dissemination

 Could you describe briefly how you disseminate regional, urban and rural data?

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Services free of charge:

The free of charge Internet databases (e.g. StatFin) contain a vast amount of basic data from Finland and around the world.

Chargeable services:

The chargeable Internet databases (e.g. databases: Altika, KunTo, Population Statistics Service, Finland by Postal Code Area, Rural Indicators, Transition from School to Work, Urban and Regional Indicators,) provide longer time series and more detailed data on diverse topics.

SWEDEN

 Regional statistics is an integrated part in our statistical system, each department is accountable for regional statistics in their respective domain of statistics. Statistic Sweden have 4 departments that produce regional statistics, there is the department of Population and Welfare, National accounts, Economics statistics and the department of Regional and Environment. For more information see attached file of Statistic Sweden organisation.

 The department of Regional and Environmental has a coordination roll in the system and are responsible for all statistics on levels below municipalities. They also operate a regional network within the organisation. The department of Regions and Environment are also responsible for all regional classification, and the function of RESCO and NUAC.

 It´s very difficult to select a topic that is the core of regional statistics in our organisation since we have regional statistics in all our domains. The department of Population and Welfare probably has the highest number of tables on a regional level.

 There have been no changes in priority regarding regional statistics in the last four years.

35  One of the most interesting projects that we are working on today is our SCB atlas (eXplorer). This visualization project with regional data has become more and more popular. Today we have included data from the department of Population and Welfare, Economic statistics and Regions and Environment on a municipality level and county (NUTS 3) level. Later on this fall we will include statistics from the National Accounts department as well.

 Statistic Sweden disseminates a large number of data on NUTS 3 level in all our domains. All departments produce and disseminate regional data on NUTS 3 level. Of course we can´t produce and disseminate all data on a NUTS 3 level, there are some data we can´t disseminate due to secrecy rules, and there are some surveys that can´t be disaggregated to NUTS 3 but overall we have no problem with dissemination of regional data.

Territorial units

 The government in Sweden has assigned a special investigator to investigate the regional government level (Fi 2009:07). The investigators are to make proposals on how the public regional government can be more efficient, coordinated and suitable. The investigation is to be completed in December of 2011. This might lead to an additional governmental level in Sweden so called regions, and it´s possible that there will be changes in the county boundaries in the coming years. The municipalities will remain the same.

 Statistic Sweden considers the comparability of NUTS regions on EU level being acceptable.

Dissemination

 Statistic Sweden disseminate regional and urban statistics on our website, we offer information about the nation, counties and municipalities in different subject areas. This is available free of charge on the website or can be developed as an assigned project by Statistics Sweden or other statistical agencies.

Regional statistics also include summaries of statistical subjects from Statistics Sweden There are also links to other government agencies that maintain regional statistics.

UNITED KINGDOM

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the NSI for the United Kingdom. ONS primarily produces data for England and Wales, but works closely with the Devolved Administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland (and Wales where applicable) to ensure a co-ordinated approach. 36 The UK has a decentralised statistical system. This means regional statistics are produced by other central government departments in addition to those produced by ONS and the Devolved Administrations.

The Regional and Local Division (RLD) within ONS provides the RESCO role for the UK. This involves coordination with the various internal divisions within ONS that produce data, central government departments and the Devolved Administrations. Coordination is achieved through a variety of means, including meetings and bi-lateral discussions.

Within ONS the key domains are population and demography, labour market, business demography, and regional accounts. Other domains are covered by central government policy departments.

No major changes over the last four years but current public sector spending cuts are likely to mean some rationalisation in future years.

What are the most interesting projects in the domain of regional statistics you are currently working on?

The 2011 Census was run in March this year. This is important to regional and local statistics – not just in terms of results and analysis, but also because of the revisions to existing small area statistical geographies and classifications.

There are two additional initiatives which, although primarily national in scope at present, may well have implications at the regional/local scale in future:

Beyond 2011 The 2011 Census may be the last traditional census in the UK. ONS have started the Beyond 2011 programme which will establish and test alternative models for meeting future user needs for census type statistics. It is hoped that an alternative model will result in increased frequency of high quality population outputs.

National Wellbeing ONS is developing new measures of national well-being. The aim is that these new measures will cover the quality of life of people in the UK, environmental and sustainability issues, as well as the economic performance of the country.

Yes. NUTS is widely recognised as a statistical geography within the UK. Data are made available at NUTS3 level in line with Eurostat requirements, where sources and analysis allow. 37 Territorial units

No major revisions currently planned.

The comparability of NUTS regions is broadly acceptable. The UK recognises that it has some areas where population totals are outside of the target thresholds. The 2013 NUTS Review will provide an opportunity to review these areas again, although the extent of change has to be balanced with the benefits of retaining stability.

The UK sees limited value in attempting to classify the EU territorial units as rural-urban across MSs because of the wide differences in how MSs view rurality. This comparative measure is more appropriate within countries rather than across countries.

Dissemination

All Government Statistical Service outputs are disseminated under a Code of Practice. The primary dissemination mechanism is via the web. Traditional paper publications are increasingly being converted into web-only publications (for example ONS’s Regional Trends).

ONS uses its main website (www.ons.gov.uk) to release data, as well as sites specifically for the dissemination of small area data (Neighbourhood Statistics - www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk) and labour market data (Nomis - www.nomisweb.co.uk).

Regional statistics are also released on websites of central government departments and the Devolved Administrations. For example, for rural data, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) produce aggregate statistics and publish them in the Statistical Digest of Rural England. (The Devolved Administrations have responsibility for the dissemination of their rural data.)

CROATIA

38 The statistical system in Croatia comprises of 20 county offices and 43 branch offices. They are mandated by the CBS to carry out tasks in data collection, notably the distribution of forms to companies and the collection of the forms as they returned. Beside having regular communication with different companies, they are also engaged in household surveys. They do no enter data, nor have they any role in disseminating CBS products or as a service centre for the local general public.

Since 1 January 2010, according to the Amendments to the Statistical Act, published in the Official Gazette No. 75/09, regional offices were integrated in the Central Bureau of Statistics. Afterwards the new Regulation on the amendments of the internal organization of the National Bureau of Statistics was published in the Official Gazette No 52/10. Latest legal act regulates the activities of new established division called The division in charge for implementation and development of statistical surveys in the counties. This division comprises following departments: the department for Statistics of the central, northwestern and eastern Croatia; the department for statistics of Istria, Primorje, Lika and Dalmatia and the department for development and implementation of methods for data collection.

First two departments are caring following activities:

The department in charge for statistics of the central, northwestern and eastern Croatia, perform the following professional activities: participating in the implementation of statistical surveys, in which participates by defining the scope (adding and updating the address book), does the distribution of questionnaires and data collection, provides instructions to reporting units to fill out questionnaires, implements the control of the coverage, completeness and meaningfulness of the collected data, speeds up the data delivery for reporting units that have not responded to the questionnaires on time, submits the questionnaires to the statistical departments, participates in proposing amendments to the contents of the questionnaire and guidance in implementing the pilot phase of testing of the questionnaire; participates in the organization of big surveys and special studies that are executed on the field. Organizes and conducts surveys in households, the selection and training of interviewers, does the division of the tasks among the interviewers, controls the work of interviewers, performs administrative tasks associated with interviewers, monitors and controls the data collection process, works continuously with the organizational units responsible for the methodology of the statistical survey and participates in all aspects of education related to improving the implementation of the survey. Organizes and conducts survey on product prices. Coordinates the work of sub-units in the regional unit in the implementation of statistical surveys by using reporting methods that means the collection and review of statements of business entities in carrying out surveys and recorded prices and the implementation of large studies that are conducted through the total coverage. Participates in the compilation of regional, urban and local statistics. The department provides the users of statistical data with the officially published data of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics. and the department in charge for the development and implementation of methods for data collection has the following professional duties: monitors the development of survey methods, particularly methods of computer-assisted telephone interviewing and computer-assisted personal interview. Developing a survey method, standardized instructions and guidelines for data collection and processing of surveys, organizes and conducts training of interviewers, in cooperation with the statistical departments. Supervises and controls the data collection process; conducts surveys using computer-

39 assisted telephone interviewing.; provides technical assistance in carrying out surveys. Performs administrative tasks associated with surveys and other activities of the regional units. Develops and implements computer-assisted telephone systems and computer- assisted personal interview. Prepares and implements new methods on professional training staff who conduct surveys. Continuously works with the statistical units of the CBS responsible for the methodology of survey research and participates in all aspects of education related to the improvement and the implementation of the survey; cooperates with the statistical departments and IT division in defining and implementing data collection systems on statistical surveys; supports the work of regional offices in the implementation of statistical surveys.

These two departments: the department for Statistics of the central, northwestern and eastern Croatia and the department for statistics of Istria, Primorje, Lika and Dalmatia are having contact with regional offices almost on daily basis.

For now the regional offices are not included in the data processing, their role is mainly focused on the data collection.

Thank to IPA 2008 the Croatian Statistical Office managed to prepare the publication The Model for the Differentiation of Urban, Rural and Semi-Urban Settlements in the Republic of Croatia. It is expected that the first set of data will be produced and published when the data collected on Census 2011 will be processed.

For now some indicators on the level of counties that means NUTS 3 level are published in the News Releases and Statistical Yearbooks.

In organizational sense a big step has been made by annexing regional offices to the head quarter situated in Zagreb.

We are the opinion that through Census 2011 a lot of interesting data have been collected and as it was the case in the previous census the final produced data will be very interesting and useful.

At NUTS 3 level produced and published data on NUTS 3 level are as follows:

40 Legal entities by NKD 2007, sections and activity; Population and Households by Censuses; Population – mid year estimate and natural change; Migration of population by place of immigration and emigration; Persons in employment in business entities according to the NKD 2007, Gross fixed capital formation in fixed assets by technical composition and headquarter of investor; Gross fixed capital formation in new fixed assets by location of objects and purpose according to NKD 2002, Arable lalnd used situation, Production of some important crops, Fruit, olive and grape production, Industrial enterprises – basic structural business indicators of industry (number of enterprises; number of persons employed – annual average; income products sold in in thousand kuna; intermediate consumption in thousand kuna; gross value added; apparent labour productivity); Industrial LKAUs – basic structural business indicators of industry (number of LKAUs; number of persons employed – annual average; income of products sold in thousand kuna; intermediate consumption in thousand kuna; gross value added in thousand kuna; apparent labour productivity (GVA per person employed, kuna);Wages and salaries in industry; Sale value of industrial products (PRODCOM) of industrial local units; residential construction (divided on urban settlements and other settlements); Value of construction works doe by type of construction and type of investor, roads network, registered road motor vehicles by police departments, traffic accidents by police department, traffic casual ties by police departments, exports and imports, distributive trade by activities performed by business entities, legal entities, tradesmen in distributive trade; sales capacities in retail trade; hotel and restaurant activity (legal entities and tradesmen), tourism; tourist arrivals by country of residence; tourist nights by country of residence; quantity of generated waste; waste disposal and waste recovery, waste incinerated, quantity of generated hazardous waste; investments in environmental protection; current expenditure for environmental protection; environmental revenues; investments in environmental protection by environmental domains; research results of the sea water quality on beaches; education; culture and sport; medical doctors, dentists and pharmacists.

Territorial units

The Croatian Government in 2010. adopted Guidelines and principles for functional decentralization and territorial reorganization that includes an assessment of the situation, goals and criteria for reform, the principles for the implementation process and framework implementation plan. The Croatian Government in 2010. made a decision on the establishment and appointment of the Working Group on Decentralization and territorial reorganization, and developed a database of local and district (regional) governments. In order to determine the optimal territorial organisation the following criteria will be applied:

1.Demographic criterion

2.Geographical criterion

3.Economic criterion

4.Financial criterion

41 5.Administrative criterion

More detailed information is available unfortunately only in Croatian language on following web site: http://www.uprava.hr/default.aspx? id=284.

It is in human nature that it always can be done better. There are some discussions and plans on establishing the working group that would do analysis on NUTS division of Croatia.. More detailed information is not available yet.

Dissemination

Currently available regional and urban data are disseminated through internet web site https://www.dzs.hr, on CD or hard copies of different CBS publications, or on request of the users.

Croatian Bureau of Statistics disseminates on a regular basis regional value added data, regional gross fixed capital formation data and regional registered employment data according to the ESA 95 transmission programme starting with year 2000 (the deadline is always 31 December).

Referring to the mentioned data, CBS is publishing regional GDP data and regional employment data on the level of the Republic of Croatia and on the level of counties (NUTS 3).

NORWAY

The work with regional statistics in Statistics Norway (SN) is not located to a single unit/office, but is carried out by the individual divisions. There is no division which has a special responsibility for the coordination of regional statistics. An exception is the work with regional standards/classifications where the Division for Population Statistics is responsible for most of the standards.

Occasionally it will be established working parties and task forces which will deal with issues connected to regional statistics. It has been established a Committee of

42 Standard Classification (Standardutvalget) which yearly has two meetings. We also have permanent GIS-groups and a GIS coordinator. Sometimes it takes place bilateral discussion in connection with the development of new or changing regional statistics.

The core domains will be Demography, Labour Market, Income and Education.

SN does not use the term urban statistics in our regional statistics production. We do not divide the municipalities into urban municipalities (cities) and rural municipalities. But we have the regional division urban settlement. According to certain criteria parts of the municipalities are divided into urban settlements.

Have no available information of this issue.

I am not working with any special project for the moment.

SN collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 (county) level for all or nearly all domains. The core domains will be the same as mention above. Have no knowledge of any difficulties. Timeliness of data can in some cases be a challenge.

Territorial units

SN is not responsible for the territorial reorganisation on municipality (The Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development determine municipal and county boundaries). SN do have the responsibility for regional divisions as Regions (7 NUTS2 units) and Economic Regions (89 LAU1 units). These divisions are very stable and have not been changed the last 10-12 years. The municipalities of Norway are divided into Basic Statistical Units (about 14 000 units). Changes in these units have to be approved by SN.

Have no comments to this issue.

43 Dissemination

Statistics Norway’s statistics (including regional data) follow these main principles for dissemination: 1 • All statistics are published on ssb.no. 2 • New statistics releases are announced in the advance release calendar and made available to the outside world via Today’s statistics on ssb.no. 3 • The main results in the new statistics are presented and commented on in Today’s statistics. 4 • The main tables (the most important and most used tables) are presented as pre- formatted tables with a fixed layout on the statistics’ homepage. 5 • The complete statistics (all the figures that it is natural to publish) are available in StatBank Norway.

StatBank contains all statistics published by Statistics Norway. StatBank is structured in such a way that the user can customise tables and then download these to a PC for further processing. StatBank has been developed to handle multi-dimensional matrices, based on Statistics Norway's standards for variables and code lists. The divisions are responsible for establishing and updating StatBank.

Regional data are also disseminated through Statistical yearbook and Kostra. The key figures in KOSTRA (Municipality-State-Reporting) provide information on most of the municipal and county municipal activities, including economy, schools, health, culture, the environment, social services, public housing, technical services and transport and communication. The figures focus on the priorities, productivity and the coverage of needs, using a vast range of key indicators. The system enables comparisons between neighbouring municipalities as well as county and national averages.

TURKEY

 Central Thematic Units organize production and coordination of Regional Statistics. While these Units conduct methodological studies, 26 Regional Units or Units within other ministries collect data from field.

44  In TURKSTAT Regional Statistics Team is responsible for regional statistics.

The core domains are population and migration, demography, building, education, culture, tourism, health, justice, environment, elections, agriculture, energy, labour force, business, transportation, prices and indexes, purchasing power parity, national accounts, consumption expenditure and income and living conditions.

 Basic labour force indicators on level 3 and Regional Gross Value added on level 2

 Labor Force and GVA.

 Yes, it does. Core domains are population and migration, demography, building, education, culture, tourism, health, justice, environment, elections, agriculture, energy and transportation.

 It is difficult to collect survey data such as labour force, consumption expenditure and sectoral business statistics on statistical level 3 because of the large sample size. These data have been collected by regional level 2. We have been producing only basic labour force indicators on level 3 for the years 2008- 2009-2010 and GVA on level 2 for the period of 2004-2008.

Territorial units

 We don’t have any plan on regional level.

 Our statistical regions are comparable with EU level.

Dissemination

45 Our regional and urban data have been disseminated via Regional Database on TURKSTAT web page starting from 1995 yearly.

Furthermore, each Turkstat Regional Offices (26) publish their own regional publication in every year. Their contents and designs are prepared by Regional Statistics Team.

PORTUGAL

Territorial Statistics (DES/TT) is part of the Social and Demographic Statistics Department (DES) and it is responsible for the coordination of data integration and dissemination that support regional and local governance.

The Territorial Statistics unit coordinates projects on data dissemination, on statistics production based upon data integration and on territorial nomenclatures in order to disseminate data for relevant spatial units (cities, urban/rural local and regional arrangements).

These activities entail great articulation with all the thematic units in Statistics Portugal (the remaining units of the Social and Demographic Statistics Department, the Enterprises Statistics Department and, the National Accounts Department, namely the Regional Accounts unit) and there is also a strong link with the Geo-data unit from the Methodology and Information Systems Department. The territorial perspective on data dissemination also implies strong articulation with other bodies from Public Administration that hold administrative data directly or indirectly linked with territorial issues (e.g. land use defined in the instruments of territorial planning).

Furthermore, Statistical Council has a specific Permanent Section on Territorial Statistics with representatives of the relevant bodies of the Central, Regional and Local administration. This Permanent Section not only monitors and discusses the activity plan for regional and urban statistics, but also sets up working parties to deal with new data needs.

Most of the thematic statistical projects produce and disseminate data for NUTS2 level and the Territorial Statistics unit is particularly oriented to provide data for territorial arrangements bellow NUTS2 (including NUTS3 level).

Two major underlying aims structure the territorial statistics activities: i) to provide regular thematic data production for smaller territorial units and ii) to construct new indicators and territorial arrangements that are specifically relevant for the analysis of territorial dynamics.

46 The first aim is largely achieved through the coordination of the Regional Statistical Yearbooks, which structure the classic domains of dissemination in four major themes: the Territory, the People, the Economic Activity and the State. Most of the information published in this set of publications (one for each of the seven NUTS2) is organised by municipality level and there has been an effort to assure that these data is also available in the on-line database.

The second aim is oriented by the interaction with stakeholders (within the Permanent Section of Territorial Statistics in the Statistical Council, within international forums, within national working groups, and within institutional cooperation) and is largely achieved by research activities. The success of these projects can result in the development of the territorial statistics information system and the regular production and dissemination of territorial data. Some examples of the recent work carried out under this second aim:

 Territorial mobility and accessibility statistics working group (within the Statistical Council) – involves the systematization of data needs under three axis, environmental sustainability, quality of life and competitiveness, and a first inventory of registers to tackle these needs. The delivery of the final report is scheduled to December 2011 but exploratory work is already on course to evaluate Statistics Portugal Spatial Infrastructure to comply with the needs for the computation of indicators to measure population accessibility to education facilities;

 The regional development composite index (ISDR) (a project that derives from a research cooperation with a body of the Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Regional Development) - in April 2011 Statistics Portugal released the second edition of ISDR. The indicator has a two-tier structure in the sense that the overall development in each region results from the performance regarding three components: competitiveness, cohesion and environmental quality. Its conceptual and methodological approaches are the basis for an exploratory project regarding OECD regions (in cooperation with OECD/ Regional Analysis and Statistics Unit)

http://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain? xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_destaques&DESTAQUESdest_boui=106837721&DESTA QUESmodo=2

 Study on the Local Purchasing Power 2009 – the ninth edition of this study will be issued next November. The study aims to characterise the 308 Portuguese municipalities from a purchasing power perspective, based on a set of synthetic indicators obtained based on a principal components factor analysis model. The study releases three indicators: Purchasing Power per capita indicator (derived from the first factor); Percentage of purchasing power (derived from the previous indicator); Relative dynamism factor (the second factor, which accounts the purchasing power mostly associated with tourism activities). The advantage of these indicators is that they are provided at LAU 1 level, territorial unit for which there is little statistical information of this nature

 Spatial Planning Indicators System (coordinated by the Directorate-General for Spatial Planning and Urban Development) – Statistics Portugal is part of a working group along with regional authorities, the Metropolitan Areas and the National Association of Municipalities with a mandate to setup an information 47 system to monitor the state of spatial planning. This indicator system is structured by national targets and by underlying critical issues of success and involves data integration from both administrative registers and the National Statistical System.

 Territorial Portrait of Portugal – Statistics Portugal released in May 2011 the second edition of Territorial Portrait of Portugal that aims to provide data users with an analytical publication that gathers information available in the National Statistical System to explore territorial development issues. This biennial publication analyses the Portuguese territorial dynamics structured by the domains “territorial qualification”, “cohesion and quality of life” and “competitiveness and growth” that, in this edition, were explored, respectively, on the following approaches: Territorial valorisation of touristic destinations, Demographic sustainability of the territories and Industrial production and export orientation in the Portuguese regions.

http://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain? xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_publicacoes&PUBLICACOESpub_boui=118940128&PU BLICACOESmodo=2

 Population estimates – in cooperation with the Demographic Statistics unit, Territorial Statistics is involved in the regular evaluation of the inter-census LAU1 population estimates by confronting them with the preliminary results of Census 2011. While this work will continue with the Census 2011 provisional and definitive results in 2012/13, there is also an undergoing parallel project to evaluate the feasibility of using administrative registers to capture the component of internal migration.

Territorial units

Currently there is a debate in Portugal regarding municipalities (LAU1), parishes (LAU2) and inter-municipal arrangements launched by the recent Green Paper on the reform of Local Authorities. The schedule presented in this document suggests that new legal diplomas may be published until the second trimester of 2012.

Dissemination

Territorial statistics are disseminated through publications and through the on-line database. The results are subject of a press-release; their schedules are available at the Statistics Portugal homepage, and all underlying projects are presented in the Statistics Portugal Annual Activities Plan. All the publications are freely available in .pdf format in the Statistics Portugal homepage.

There is a specific area in the Statistics Portugal website for territorial statistics: the Territory profile. This profile is organised into three themes: indicator systems, territorial units and reference documents.

48 LUXEMBOURG

As the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg has been classified, due to its size, as one NUTS level 3 region, its national data corresponds to its regional data. In Luxembourg, data on LAU2 level is considered as “regional statistics”.

The following units are responsible for production of regional statistics under LAU2:

Unit SOC3 : Population and housing (population statistics, census data, completed buildings statistics)

Unit ENT4: conjunctural indicators, tourisme and transport (building permits)

Unit ENT3 structural business statistics (agricultural statistics)

Unit SG1: Dissemination and communication unit:

o Collection of data for the statistical yearbook. The following domains are covered under LAU2 :

- the municipalities

- territory and environment

- population and employment

- enterprises and economic activities

- social conditions

o Task force "statistics" of the statistical offices of the Greater Region (Saarland and Rheinland-Pfalz (Germany), Lorraine (France), Wallonie (Belgium) and Luxembourg): In the framework of projects supported by the Interreg IV A program 2007-2013

o Urban Audit data collection

No team is responsible for regional statistics.

49 The population statistics, our core domain of regional and urban statistics, cover demographic data, demographic indicators, statistics on the population and housing, population forecasts and migration and citizenship.

------

- the compilation of the census 2011, first results are expected for 2012

- in the framework of the program Interreg IV A (program 2007-2013), the publication of a detailed statistical analysis about commuters in the Greater Region, containing a descriptive section as well as an estimation of their underlying caracteristics, is foreseen to be published end of the year 2011

- Urban Audit data collection 2012 UA V together with our partner CEPS/Instead

The Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg has been classified, due to its size, as one NUTS level 3 region. Therefore, its national data corresponds to its regional data (contrary to most of the other EU countries)

Territorial units

There will be a territorial reorganisation of municipalities in 2012. Due to the merger of a total of 16 municipalities, the number of 116 municipalities as of 1.1.2010 will be decreased to 106 municipalities as of 1.1.2012.

Dissemination

Regional and urban data is available on our statistical portal:

www.statistiques.public.lu

http://www.statistiques.public.lu/catalogue-publications/annuaire/F.pdf

(statistical yearbook section F – the municipalities)

50 Furthermore STATEC disseminates the results of the Urban Audit data collection:

http://www.statistiques.public.lu/fr/acteurs/autres/urban/

Finally the statistical data of the Greater Region is disseminated on the respective statistical portal of the Greater Region:

www.grande-region.lu

ROMANIA

Within the Romanian National Institute of Statistics ‘structure there is no organizational structure to be responsible for coordinating of the regional statistical production. These statistics are produced by specialized units within NSI (social statistics, economic statistics, national accounts, and price statistics) and are based on the approved Annual national statistical program.

For the Urban Audit and Rural development projects the data collection was done centrally, in the direct coordination of the NUAC/RESCO responsible. Data are collected and processed centrally and the sources of these data are specialized units of NSI, territorial statistical departments and administrative data of other authorities producing official statistics.

Coordination of the actions related to urban audit and urban development indicators, as well as other actions regarding the regional statistics are the responsibility of the Coordination of national statistical system department.

It is the responsibility of the Coordination of national statistical system department to organise working meetings with experts of the specialised units, the territorial departments and other authorities, depending on the issues discussed /analysed.

 Economic Statistics: Agriculture statistics, Sylviculture statistics, Environmental Statistics, Business statistics (Structural statistics, Business demography),

51 Industry Statistics, Statistics of energy, gas and water, Construction and Investment Statistics, Statistical Services (Tourism, hotels and restaurants; Transport; Post and telecommunications), Research, Development and innovation;

 Social Statistics: Population and Demography Statistics, Standard of Living Statistics, Labour Statistics, Social Protection Statistics, Education Statistics, Culture Statistics, Justice Statistics, Health Statistics.

 National Accounts

 Price Statistics.

The statistical activity was aimed at reducing the response burden of the respondents by:

 to use in a greater extend the administrative data sources

 to extend the electronic data collection system and dissemination of the statistical information

 Urban Audit - “Urban Audit 2009-2010”;  Rural Development - “Data collection exercise Rural Development Indicators for Romania”;  Sustainable Development - “Support the development of indicator sets for monitoring National SD Strategies” (at the territorial level).

 Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level?

 Yes

 If yes: What are the core domains? Did you encounter any difficulties? If no: Why not?

At present, INS provides data at regional level for almost all the statistical fields, in keeping with the stipulations of statistical community acquis. Harmonization degree of regional statistics with statistical community acquis is integral for the following fields: demography, education, labour force, migration, research, development and innovation, Business statistics (Structural statistics), health, tourism, transport and energy. For statistical fields, in which alignment to EU norms and standards regarding data requests at regional level is not yet totally carried out, INS, together with other interested 52 ministries and institutions, develop, based on collaboration programs and conventions, preparing papers, in order to achieve the integral implementation of regional statistical indicators.

Territorial units

There are internal political debates regarding the territorial reorganisation process but until now there is not established a deadline or a plan to modify the actual administrative structure at national level.

The data processing and the dissemination are carried out in accordance with the Regulation (CE) no 1059/2003 regarding the Nomenclature of the territorial units for statistics (NUTS)

Dissemination

The access to statistical information is ensured through the publication system (printed and on magnetic support) issued by the National Institute of Statistics, offered for consultation in the dissemination room, in the library and data shop existing at the NSI headquarters, through the dissemination services functioning at central and local level, as well as on line through the web site of our institution (www.insse.ro). All these publications present core elements on the economic and social dynamics to all those who want to analyse the situation in one or another region.

53 NAME OF YOUR COUNTRY: FRANCE

There is a spécific département “département de l’action régionale” and two units : “Régional, local and Urban statistic unit and one unit in charge of “géoréferencement” ans statistics on grid cells (200 m wide).

Some other data are produced by another units, in charge of population (national and regional) and employment (national and regional).

The “département de l’action régionale” has regular discussions with the “national” units in charge of reginal population and employment

1. As an alternative to statistical data for administrative or statistical blobs, production of statistical data for geographical grids kept on improving during the year 2011. At the beginning of september, population data was disseminated on the web site of the Insee using for the first time high resolution grid cells (200m wide). These populations are estimated from a fiscal source but significant progress was also made with the census, enabling to end the French participation to the ESSnet project "Geostat" with a delivery of grided census populations open to replace current estimations made by the JRC. Meanwhile other statistical data based on grids are available for most of the territory of France and are used in many studies by our local partners.

54 2. We are working to have more détails in statistics of income by using administrativ data. : poverty and standart of living indicators for nuts2, nuts3 and perhaps other local units

3. During the year 2011, Insee has worked about local zonings: “urban area” (aires urbaines) and urban units (unité urbaines).

The urban ereas will be published the 18 th of october. This zoning is based at first on the identification of “employment pôles” (pôles d’emploi) : urban units in which there is more than 1 500 jobs . Then we aggregate LAU5 or urban units in which 40 % of the active and resident population is working in the “employment poles”.

I could send you the method after the 18 th of october.

Territorial units

Mayotte, saint Martin

Dissemination

We dissemiate many local (NUTS2, NUT3, other zoning, LAU5….) on the web site insee.fr

We published studies about these data

55 The 22 “régional directions” (direction régionales de l’Insee) in France disseminate also data on the own web site and also published studies

NAME OF YOUR COUNTRY AUSTRIA

It is not centrally organized. For example:

Regional population and regional labour is situated in the directorate Social Statistics

Regional Accounts is situated in the directorate Macro-economic Statistics

Urban Statistics in the directorate Social Statistics.

Regional Agricultural data in the directorate Spatial Statistics.

Geographical Information and NUTS classification: Registers, Classifications and Methods Division

Participation in EU-Grants by directorate Spatial Statistics (NUTS level 3 data collection for Rural Development Statistics covering 2005-2010)

NO – see question 1

Go to question 1

Regional Accounts: This year the main emphasis of our work is on the rearrangement of the regional accounts to the new economy classification NACE Rev.2. We are preparing to submit calculations for the years 2007 to 2009.

56  Does your NSI collect/disseminate data at NUTS3 level? If yes: What are the core domains? Did you encounter any difficulties?

Regional Accounts: GVA and employment

Labour market data at NUTS3 (and NUTS4) is disseminated by using administrative data (Register based labour market statistics – “Abgestimmte Erwerbsstatistik”). The yearly data collection is based on the priniciples of the registered based census.

population

Participation in EU-Grants by directorate Spatial Statistics (NUTS level 3 data collection for Rural Development Statistics covering 2005-2010); Most of these data are not disseminated

 If no: Why not?

Cross sectional task. An effective/sustainable improvement regarding the availability on NUTS 3 level seems rather be achievable via the particular working groups

Territorial units

The federal province of Styria plans to combine two political districts (Knittelfeld and Judenburg) on 1st of January 2012. This plan has not yet passed the provincial legislation though.

As a consequence a new identifier of this district will be introduced and all municipalities (LAU-2) in this new district will get new identifiers. NUTS 3 (AT 226) should not be affected by this merging. A spreadsheet with a comparison of the new and old identifiers will be available on the website of Statistics Austria.

Dissemination

Regional Accounts: The dissemination takes place via Internet (Homepage of Statistics Austria link: http://www.statistik.at/. The national publication is in

57 accordance with the transmission programme (NUTS2). For NUTS 3 the aggregates of the transmission programm are only published for A3.

Labour market data at NUTS3 (and NUTS4) is disseminated by using administrative data (Register based labour market statistics – “Abgestimmte Erwerbsstatistik”). The yearly data collection is based on the priniciples of the registered based census.